November 17, 2011

Control of the Senate is crucial, perhaps more important than the Presidency. The NYT has assembled the information about the different races very clearly on this page, though I suspect the estimates are skewed in favor of the Democrats. There are 30 Democratic seats and 37 Republican seats that are not up for reelection, so there's no skewing there. But the NYT counts 11 Democratic seats and only 7 Republican seats as "solid," which puts the teams at 41 and 44, and then it has 5 seats as "leaning" Democratic and only 2 "leaning" Republican, which — lo and behold — puts them even at 46-46. Hmm.
Anyway, I love the clarity of the graph and the map and the concise presentation of the "Analysis of the 15 states in play." We should bone up on these details. We spend so much time staring at the presidential candidates. I want to pay much more attention to these Senate races, including the race in my own state, which is one of the 8 "tossups":

The retirement of Senator Herb Kohl, a four-term Democrat, creates a wide-open race in a state that is already awash in political crosscurrents. An effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, will draw interest groups and money from both sides into the state. A former longtime governor, Tommy Thompson, is among the Republicans who are trying to win the primary to face Representative Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Madison in her first statewide race.

There's so much more than that happening here, of course, but I lack even that level of information about the other 14 tossups.

In a number of states where Republicans have been hopeful of picking up a seat, they are being hampered by some of the same dynamics that vexed their party in 2008, including trouble recruiting strong and experienced candidates, intra-party fighting, weak fund-raising and the very same anti-incumbent sentiment that also threatens Democrats.

Winning the Senate is tantalizingly within reach for Republicans, who have just 10 seats up for re-election, compared with the 23 that Democrats will defend next year, many of them in states where Democrats barely won in strong years for their party. Powerful national political trends continue to favor Republicans, especially in a weak economy.

But on a state by state basis, there are factors that give the Democrats hope and the Republicans pause....

Is the NYT bolstering the spirits of its readers, or are the Republicans really dragging each other down? Example of a problem cited in the article:

[I]n Ohio... Josh Mandel, the state treasurer, a Marine Corps veteran and fund-raising powerhouse, is somewhat disadvantaged in his race against the incumbent Democrat, Senator Sherrod Brown, by the fact the he looks too young to shave, several party officials acknowledged.

... Republicans have some concerns even in states that heavily favor them, including North Dakota, and Democrats are investing heavily in places like Nebraska, even though Senator Ben Nelson’s voting record often has the Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, pulling at his gray tufts of hair.

More hair problems! I think that means Nelson's technically a Democrat, so he helps the Democrats maintain majority status, but he's not much of a Democrat, presumably because Nebraskans want someone voting more like a Republican. According to the first-linked page, Nelson might not run:

If he does, the race will become a key test for whether a moderate Democrat can win re-election in a conservative state when Republican turnout is expected to be high in a presidential year. He often votes with Republicans, but his 11th-hour support for the health care law still haunts him politically. Even so, Republicans have struggled to find a well-established candidate.

Back to the Steinhauer article:

The biggest fear among Republicans is of divisive primaries in which Tea Party-backed candidates prevail in states where they cannot win the general election, as happened in 2010 in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, or that weaken the preferred candidate in the process.

I guess that's the "feuding" referenced in the headline. Is it feuding or hybrid vigor? I think it's fine for a party to have internal debating between moderate and more extreme contingencies. It's vital, and not bland. But then I'm a moderate. I know the staunch conservatives think moderates are bland.

Fears of ideologically divisive primaries often keep the best candidates from running, some Republican officials said.

“We are having trouble recruiting,” said Martha Breene, the chairwoman of the Venango County Republican party in Pennsylvania. “You often are not getting what you hope you could be getting, and then there is the Tea Party factor. A lot of them have good intent but it is sort of like they are the police men of all things and they aren’t going to let other Republicans matter.”

Thank you, Martha Breene, the chairwoman of the Venango County Republican Party, for dishing up the quote needed for this article. If you want to know what "Republican officials" are saying, be sure to check in on Venango County. It's the pulse of Pennsylvania.

57 comments:

Is the NYT bolstering the spirits of its readers, or are the Republicans really dragging each other down?

Has the Times ever done otherwise?

Also I think that the Times assumes that neither the Republican establishment, such as it is, nor the Tea Party have learned anything from Nevada and Delaware in 2010. If I were a Democrat (i.e., if I had a lobotomy) I wouldn't count on it.

If you look at individual races, there aren't that many states that the Rs could conceivably pick up.

Certainly we'll pick up ND, and maybe VA and MT. We'll probably hold MA and NV, but they're not slam-dunks; we could lose one.

So that would be a net pickup of 2 seats, and the Dems would still have something like a 54-46 majority. And bear in mind that many of those 46 are Snowe/Collins style Republicans -- that is, Trojan-horse democrats.

So those of you thinking that we might be better off with Obama winning, and gridlock, than we would be with any less-than-perfect Republican presidential candidate: Be careful what you wish for.

Obama won't even need a single house of Congress to do lasting damage if he wins a second term. What he can't do through changes in departmental policies, he'll get done by executive order. And with a solid majority in the Senate, filibuster-proof if you count the RINOs as Dems, he'll nominate someone just to the left of William Ayers to replace about 3 supreme court justices.

But I don't know where the remaining 3 seats would come from for the Rs to pull even. HI? Not in my lifetime. You'd think Nebraska would be easy, but Nelson has a pork-barrel strangle-hold on that state (if he decides to run).

The Gray Lady is whistling past the graveyard; remember, the Demos are running from GodZero as fast as they can.

Pastafarian said...

ricpic, I don't think so.

If you look at individual races, there aren't that many states that the Rs could conceivably pick up.

Keep in mind, this scenario applies only if things stay the same. If there's another market crash (likely) or some other disaster, the Demos, having had their way on everything, will take the brunt of it.

Huh? The current composition of the Senate is 53 members of the Democratic caucus and 47 members of the Republican caucus. The Republicans have to pick up 3 seats if they gain the Presidency and 4 if they don't.

They start with North Dakota in their pocket. So it's down to 2 or 3.

Cook Political has 9 races as toss up. Two of them are Republican seats. Split those and it's back up to 3 or 4.

7 of the tossups are Democratic. Split all of those and you have a 3.5 seat gain for the Republicans and it becomes a matter of rounding who gains control if the President is reelected.

I'm sort of surprised that Cook doesn't rate Florida as a tossup, it seems like the incumbent is fairly weak.

We'll have a better look at this when Nate Silver starts running his projections.

There's so much disrespect for the Senate, now ... Where most voters HATE both leaders; the Chinless Wonder, and the Nevada Mormon ...

That anyone running is going to have to be FISCALLY ON TARGET ... OR they'll be "one-termers." Given that it is also the way a majority of voters will come to respect their abilities at shoving these bastards out of office! (Sure. "Some" safe states. But if you're looking at "flippers" ... where Blue States give up their senator ... LIKE THE WAY FEINGOLD GOT TOSSED!) The worst thing that could happen to the republicans is to look like "OUT COMES THE LITMUS PAPER."

And, that's actually the problem you have right now.

What if the "win" sits on the margins? And, you get 60 seats, let's say.

How much room would that give the republicans to manuever?

Point to Dole, and you'd see a leader who was very out of touch with the average voter.

The Chinless Wonder is WORSE!

And, believe it or not ... I'd bet there are lots of voters who gave the republicans the ability to toss out Pelosi from the Speaker's Office. But what did you get in return?

There's a reason congress polls poorly; when Americans are asked to generate a number signifying their respect levels ... for these bench sitters.

If once, as Buckley said, you could pick incumbents from the first 100 names in the Boston telephone book ... That wasn't a compliment!

Yes. The republican party needs to be careful. It needs to notice the "pre-birth" amendment tanked in the friendly territory down south.

And, the republican governor of Ohio (Kasich), got kicked around real good at the election we just had in November.

the Times assumes that neither the Republican establishment, such as it is, nor the Tea Party have learned anything from Nevada and Delaware in 2010.

What lesson, if you allow the Dems to enlist the media and even fellow repugs to Palin the candidate in one state (Delaware), and to get out the unions to steal the election in the other state (Nevada), you can lose? That lesson? Yeah, I don't know if they got it. Repugs are the party of stupid.

On the other hand? If Kagan doesn't recuse herself. And, she "goes for the extension of the Commerce Clause to "include" health care mandates ... What are the chances the republicans, if they OWNED Congress ... couldn't call her down to Impeach her? She's already given testimony to the senate ... to be confirmed ... That she wouldn't do that.

And, Anthony Kennedy, whose feathers have been ruffled real good. On the one hand can't stand that Roberts got to be Chief. And, he did not. While he also knows what KELO did to his reputation.

9 People. They got power!

How will they interpret that "power?"

And, knowing Obama. IF he doesn't have a Congress to work with ... Can't he still shape the Supremes ... by the appointments he makes to fill vacant Supreme Court chairs?

I don't think Obama has all the enemies, now, that you claim he has.

He's not Jimmy Carter.

Obama knows that winning over McCain was a piece of cake.

And, politics is all about the perceptions on how you fight people more disliked that yourself.

I clicked through just to see what they did with my state and Obama's "favorite Republican." They have it as solid Republican. Well, I'm doing all I can to remove Dick Lugar in the Indiana primaries. I have a lot of liberal friends, but they consider themselves independent because they vote for Lugar.

@Glenn, add Virginia to the guaranteed Republican column, assuming it's Kaine versus Allen. Kaine's a former governor, and despite the best efforts of the Washington Post to rewrite history (and the present), his administration is looking worse and worse when contrasted with Bob McDonnell's Republican administration. Kaine gets no bounce from using his position as DNC chair to intervene in Wisconsin (though it's not as big a boat anchor as I had hoped back then), while if McDonnell and Cantor actively support Allen then fold up the tents because the show is over.

"Huh? The current composition of the Senate is 53 members of the Democratic caucus and 47 members of the Republican caucus. The Republicans have to pick up 3 seats if they gain the Presidency and 4 if they don't."

I think the NYT presentation is much more fine-grained than that.

"We'll have a better look at this when Nate Silver starts running his projections."

I'd guess that the NYT is using his work in producing this page.

"I'm sort of surprised that Cook doesn't rate Florida as a tossup, it seems like the incumbent is fairly weak."

According to the NYT re Florida: "Until there is a clear [GOP] candidate, this state leans Democrat."

The NYT analysis is based on the specifics of the actual candidates and likely candidates.

That's because the Tea Party folks are not Republicans. They're conservatives. A unique concept to many GOP functionaries.

More to the point, they're fiscal conservatives. Some of them care about abortion, while others (like me, for instance) think that abortion should be safe and legal. I do not think social conservatives will step aside without a fight, but they've elected too many people who make no particular effort to stop abortion nor to rein in spending. Our turn now.

This is certainly not Silver's work. I would bet that he will give Republicans a considerably higher chance, though perhaps not as high as Intrade. Now that this article was published, maybe he'll have a response soon.

We don't know who the Republican challenger to McCaskill will be. Three candidates have thrown their hat in the ring. Todd Akin, a U.S. Congressman, with a 10 year lifetime ACU score of 97.8, and who recently earned Paul Ryan's endorsement, will likely be the candidate. However, Sarah Steelman, formerly a state treasurer with conservative credentials perceived to be as strong as Akin's, has consistently had a slight lead in the polls against Akin. But that was before Ryan endorsed Akin. It will be interesting to see the next polls to see how much sway Ryan has in Missouri. The last GOP candidate is a businessman named John Bonner, who I believe has never held public office before. However, he has been spending heavily on advertising to increase his name recognition.

When Missourians got the chance to express their views on a healthcare mandate, it went down in flames by a vote of 29%-71%. Yet McCaskill voted for Obamacare even though there was polling conducted about a week prior to the Obamacare vote showing only 38% of Missourians wanted Obamacare to pass. I know she saw the poll because I sent it to her. That's going to be hung around her neck in the general election. Plus she was embarrassed by media reports that taxes on a plane she partly owned were delinquent. She only paid the delinquent taxes after those embarrassing media reports came to light. I suspect the Republican candidate will happily highlight that in campaign ads also.

On the other hand, McCaskill has lived and worked in both Kansas City and St. Louis prior to becoming a senator. She's well connected to the Democrat machines there. She won those city's districts handily in 2006 and I assume she still has decent support there today. But she's definitely lost alot of the support she had in the rural and suburban parts of the state. And even Springfield, the third largest city, will likely go with the Republican candidate because the southern part of the state is staunchly Republican.

Whoever the GOP candidate is will almost certainly win all of interior Missouri. McCaskill will probably win K.C., St. Louis, and possibly Columbia (Columbia will be close). McCaskill's best chance is to hope for an abnormally low turnout. That's because the Democrat machine has a very strong "get out the vote" ground game in K.C. and St. Louis. With a low turnout, they can use their GOTV efforts in the two biggest cities to try to overcome her losses everywhere else.

I'd rate it slightly leans Republican, but I can't quibble with characterizing it as a tossup -- but only because she has a big benefit from being a Democrat in the population centers of K.C. and St. Louis AND because she has the power of incumency. As always, many low information voters will vote for her simply because they recognize her name on the ballot.

Intrade also has Obama with a 51% chance of reelection, which would be slightly higher if his odds of being the Democratic Pres nominee were 100% (they are 96% on Intrade).The NYT chart is useful but misses the idea that there are a large number of split ticket voters that don't want either party with full control.

Even according to the NYT's assembly, the Republicans clearly are favored to take the Senate. If you assume that the "solid" states stay put, the only way the two sides are even is if the "leaning" states all stay put as well. If there is a significant chance of them changing hands in both directions, Republicans would gain an extra seat or so, since there are 5 on the Democratic side and only 2 on the Republican.

The NYT article is a puff piece to cocoon Democrats from the evil mean real world.

Starting point? Look at InTrade:Probability that Democrats will control Senate after 2012 elections: 21.5%Probability that Republicans will control Senate after 2012 elections: 74.4%

You disagree? Go place your bets and make some money off the rest of us.

Leans Republican that they have as tossup:

NV (Heller crushed the Democrat in the special election)

MT (Tester won against a weak Republican in a Democrat Wave year. He provided the deciding vote for ObamaCare (as did every other Democrat Senator, since it needed all 60 votes). He's toast.

NE Ben "Cornhusker Kickback" Nelson is toast for voting for ObamaCare and the "Stimulus"

VA Webb MIGHT have been able to hold the seat (see "deciding vote for ObamaCare"). In 2011 elections the Dems got slaughtered in pro-R gerrymandered House elections, and the Reps managed to take control of the Senate despite a pro-D gerrymander. The Dems don't have a single significant statewide political figure in office to run for the seat.

Solid Republican:ND is Solid R, not "leaning".

So that takes us to 45 solid R, R solid and leaning R.

All 5 of the "leaning Democrat" are actually tossups.

Of the "solid Democrat" NY (if Rudy Giuliani jumps in) WA, WV, MN (if Pawlenty jumps in) and CT could all move from solid to leans with a little luck on the Republicans part. But even w/o that, we're looking at 50 - 41 R, with 9 tossups. If the authors of that article actually believe what they're saying, they need to get their meds checked.

I wasn't very impressed with the map or analyses. But then, I'm seldom impressed with soothsaying masquerading as journalism. There are too many variables that will be wildly different in a few months, let alone in a year.

I was personally involved in political calling for the GOP in 2004 and 2010, including more calls to Venango County than I like to remember. They weren't as disorganized as Clearfield County - where in 2008 the county party chairman deliberately and with malice sabotaged the campaign, up to and including locking volunteers out of the offices so that no work could be done in them - but I have never heard of this Breene woman. Maybe she's new, and that's all good, but I rather suspect she's some card-punching nonentity who never gets involved in actual campaign work, and... well, best not articulate my suspicions without positive evidence.

Looking at our senate race in 2012 - good god, my state senator is a possible candidate? The man's an admitted former heroin user who got the job because he's the son of a beloved predecessor in the seat! He's been a surprisingly passable state senator, but the national media would eat his liver!

The problem for many of the Democrats running for re-election is that they will have to run against Obama. Or maybe it is just a problem for Obama.

The ability of Republican candidate to manage the wedge between Dem. Senator and Obama in key swing states like Missouri, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio will determine the outcome there. If the Republicans were actually a smart, organized political party they would have settled on a Presidential nominee and candidates in these swing states to coordinate the campaigns there.

The media glorifies split control of the legislative and executive branch- when a republican is presiedent. The other way around and stories about the horrors of gridlock and blocking the presidents agenda begin.

Obey has joined Gephardt Government Affairs, which describes itself as one of Washington’s “most effective legislative strategy shops.” He’s not a registered lobbyist, not like the firm’s leader, former congressman and presidential candidate Dick Gephardt. Not yet, anyway. The one-year “cooling-off period” that prevents former House members from lobbying former colleagues will not expire for Obey until January.

The '12 presidential election is going to be a no-holds-barred knife fight... at least on the part of the Dems. They can't run on Obama's record (most people think he's a failure), they can't run on his likability (most people don't like him anymore), and they can't run on Hope and Change (already had a Black president, but he wasn't the One we were looking for). What do they have left? Scorched earth.

I think Gingrich will get the nod. If he's smart (and he is), he is somehow going to get Cain to be his Obama attack dog... because Cain is mostly immune to charges of racism. Cain may be the next Commerce Secretary or maybe SecTreas for his efforts.

I think the Dem hysteria will backfire on them, badly. Especially when Gingrich publicises things like 'CBO sez stimulus hurt us for the next decade', etc. Gingrich will look like the reasonable man at the presidential debates, his former competitors will band together to say good things about him, and the moderate pragmatists in the middle will find him reassuring. His personal life won't matter... it's in the past, he's changed, found religion, etc. True believer Dems aren't going to vote for him but they're around 30% of the electorate.

Newt will work with the GOP to get an aligned message for the majority of Congressional campaigns (Senate and House), and this will be a Dem ass-kicking along the lines of 1980... except it will also include Congressional Dems.

Obama is doomed. The US economy will fall into another recession, brought on by what's going on in the EU and in China (checked real estate prices there lately?). Things like punting on the Keystone pipeline, inflation, OWS, etc., will haunt him.

2012 will be the perfect storm for the GOP... if they don't blow it. Unfortunately, all too often they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Things do not look good for another term of obama-Biden. The democrats would be wise to challenge them with two new faces. I think those two should be Anthony Weiner and Eric Holder. What democrat could resist the Weiner-Holder campaign?

Obama's Administration just killed 200,000 jobs by blocking Natural Gas leases, and destroyed tens of thousands of jobs by blocking the Keystone Pipeline until after the election. For this he will lose Ohio and PA, and possibly WI. Of course, with voter ID being required, and therefore vote fraud harder to pull off, WI was a toss-up to begin with. If Romney's the GOP nominee, Obama also loses MI.

President Obama is toast in 2012. The only real question is "how big will he lose?" I think he's going to give Jimmy Carter a run for his money.